A digital camera is a component now often integrated into commercial electronic media device platforms. Digital camera platforms are now available in wearable form factors (e.g., video capture earpieces, video capture headsets, video capture eyeglasses, etc.), as well as other mobile computing platforms, such as smartphones, tablet computers, and notebook computers, etc. Three-dimensional (3D) cameras are now becoming more common, and can be found on many mobile computing devices/platforms. These devices provide enhanced entertainment and utility experiences to an end user. For example, photography may be enhanced by depth information output from the 3D camera. 3D cameras may be implemented with a plenoptic light field camera or by including multiple 2D cameras on a platform (e.g., stereo imaging systems).
Some digital camera hardware modules (CM) utilized in various integrated or embedded computing platforms incorporate an image sensor, such as a CMOS sensor, that is inherently responsive to near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths as well as visible light (RGB) wavelengths. Typically, for the sake of optimal RGB reproduction, a CM includes a hot mirror that blocks substantially all of the NIR from the image sensor. More recently, digital camera designers have been considering architectures and techniques that utilize NIR responsivity of a sensor. Such architectures often simply entail removing the hot mirror from the CM. Doing so however, re-introduces the problems that originally led its use. Camera systems capable of leveraging the NIR band for enriching an RGB image, for example to determine depth information more robustly, without significant loss to RGB quality are therefore advantageous.